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Tag: President Jonathan

  • Jonathan in Gombe for northeast summit

    Jonathan in Gombe for northeast summit

    President Goodluck Jonathan arrived Gombe on Tuesday for the second North East Economic Summit.

    The summit was organised by states in the northeast comprising Gombe, Adamawa, Taraba, Borno, Yobe and Bauchi.

    The president was accompanied by the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and other important dignitaries.

    He was received at the Gombe Airport by Goernors Babangida Aliyu of Niger, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, the host, Ibrahim Dankwambo, and the acting governor of Taraba, Garba Umar.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that from the airport, the President proceeded to the Government House, Gombe, venue of the summit.

    He is scheduled to pay homage to the Emir of Gombe, Alhaji Shehu Abubakar and inaugurate some projects before leaving the state for Abuja.

     

  • Boko Haram: Jonathan meets service chiefs

    Boko Haram: Jonathan meets service chiefs

    Following terrorists’ attacks at the Maiduguri International Airport and the Composite Group Air force Base in Borno State, President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday held emergency security meeting with security chiefs at the Presidential Villa.

    Many people were killed in the early Monday morning attack.

    The security chiefs who were at the closed-door meeting are – the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Ola Sa’ad Ibrahim, Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Azubike Ihejirika and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh.

    No official press statement was issued for the meeting which ended at about 3.40pm.

    The Chief of Defence Staff, who initially declined to comment on discussions at the meeting later, said that the situation was being managed.

     

     

  • Jonathan promises ‘even development’ in Nigeria

    Jonathan promises ‘even development’ in Nigeria

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday assured that his administration will not leave any stone unturned in the bid to ensure equal development of the country.

    Giving the assurance during his investiture with the rank of Knight Grand Cross by the Noble Communion and Holy Apostolic Order of St. Hadrian of Canterbury, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he said that his administration will continue to improve on the live of ordinary Nigerian.

    The President was decorated with the investiture by Archbishop Doye Teido Agama and assisted by Rt. Rev. Duke Akamisoko, Anglican Bishop of Kubwa, Abuja.

    Stressing that religion, ethnicity or creed will not play any role in the development, the President said that he will not only treat all Nigerians equally but always encourage others to do same.

    Agama noted that President Jonathan as the Head of State of the “Giant of Africa,” carries not only the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians, but also aspects of the spiritual destiny of all sons and daughters of Africa everywhere.

    According to him, the investiture only signifies what God the Father has already invested in the President through Jesus Christ and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit upon his life.

    He recalled the previous Award of Distinguished Fellow Emeritus of the Order in 2009 conferred on the President, stressing that he was elevated to the rank in Membership of Apostolic Order of St. Hadrian of Canterbury as Life Fellow Emeritus of the Order in 2011.

     

     

  • ‘Why President Jonathan should read my poem’

    ‘Why President Jonathan should read my poem’

    Ebinyo Ogbowei was twice Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Bayelsa State Chapter. He is also a senior lecturer in English and Literary Studies at the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State. Thrice, he made the NLNG Literature prize longlist in poetry in 2005, 2009 and 2013. His poems mainly tackle Niger Delta issues that border essentially on environmental degradation, oil exploration and lots more. He told Edozie Udeze why his poems stir the soul of his people and pierce hard at the heart of the powers that be.

    When the poetry of the Niger Delta is mentioned or discussed anywhere in Nigeria or beyond, Ebinyo Ogbowei’s works have to be counted among them. All his life, both as a university teacher and as an environmental activist, Ogbowei has never shied away from saying things as they truly are. With two of his works, entitled The Town Crier’s Song and Marsh Boy and other poems, for instance, he has come to establish himself as one of the most vocal voices using poetry to draw the battle line.

    “Oh, yes,” he said, “I am a three-time longlisted poet for the NLNG. These were in 2005, 2009 and 2013. What the Niger Delta Literature symbolises is, to a very large extent, what the Nigerian situation stands for. You cannot isolate one from the other. A lot of people tell us we have over flogged the Niger Delta issues. That we have written too much on the problems of the people. They maintain that we are too concerned about the problems of the day,” he said.

    “But the problem is that literature reflects the society. It is about the everyday issues that affect the people. And so long as it is so, we’ll continue to talk about it. So what is the society in which we live? It is a society split by constant violence; it is a society that is full of injustice, that is plagued by environmental degradation. All these still stare us in the face everyday and yet you say we’ve done enough on the Niger Delta issues. No, we’ve not done enough,” he stated.

    To him, the issue cannot be left alone unless urgent steps are taken to ameliorate the situation. “You see, it is so pathetic now. The environment in which we grew up is no longer the same. As children, we used to go out to catch crabs, fish in the creeks and so on. Today, the environment has been so terribly polluted we cannot do such things anymore. And this is our home; we have nowhere else to turn to. Today, we can no longer go and swim in our creeks. We can no longer go crab-hunting, our children can’t do it anymore. Now, you might think things have changed for them. But I say it is not true. The environment is not as clean as it is used to be and it is too horrible for our kids. And these are the reasons why we have to continue to draw attention to our plight through our works; through poetry, through drama and prose.”

    Ogbowei, who is unrepentant about the strength of his works and how he uses them to attack both the governments and oil companies and other agents of destabilisation in the area, said: “We have a lot of fumes which we inhale day-in-day-out. We have toxic materials which oil companies release into our environment every minute of the day. They stock them into our creeks. They were unknown to our parents and grandparents and we cry out everyday, saying, reduce this nonsense. This was what Ken Saro-wiwa fought for and died for. And we have, of course, taken over from Saro-wiwa to look at the problems of the Niger Delta and this is what we stand for.”

    According to him, there are other issues too. “Of course, these are not only merely environmental. Part of our problems is the leadership of the country and in the Niger Delta. They are our greatest problem. The problem might not really be the federal government. No. But to prove this fact, our brother is now the president. Yet, the problems have not been solved. Some people would say oh it will take a lot of time to solve the problem of the Niger Delta. How long will it take to clean an environment? How long will it take you to tell Shell to practice good practices? Look, stop burning gas; stop polluting this environment for the sake of the health and lives of the people. Tell them to stop all these and it doesn’t take long to do so. If you invest N30billion into it today, that problem, I tell you, will be solved.”

    Talking about amnesty, which he described as a cankerworm, Ogbowei fumed: “They use amnesty to breed criminals and rip off the economy of the state. It is the economy of the nation that is suffering and that’s why Boko Haram has engaged in their own criminality. They’re also asking for amnesty and that they should be paid. It is so because the whole thing is criminal. I tell you, some of the so-called rehabilitated criminals who were taken out of the country and sent to be used to eliminate political opponents. I don’t want to name names.

    “Yes, this is exactly what we are doing in our literature. We look at issues. Take for instance, some of the works by Ken Saro-wiwa. In Sozaboy, he tackles our problems and today that book still remains relevant. There, there are three levels of Mr. Enemy. The federal government, then, the regional government, that is also an enemy. That is the state government. The third level is the traditional class – our own people who join in this mess. If you look at our traditional rulers, they’re in close contact with those who mess us up, to rip off the people. They are supposed to be courageous people because they are the repository of the traditions and customs of the people. But what do we see? This is why our literature will continue to flow with pains and blood. We’ll continue to write because we’ve not seen freedom in the horizon or have we?,” he asked, a bit perturbed.

    Unfortunately, the greatest headache of the Niger Delta writer is the implication of the traditional rulers in the economic exploitation of the people. “Of course, they are our greatest enemy,” Ogbowei bemoaned, saying, “Where they are supposed to stand for the people, they easily sell out. Now check very well, you’ll see in my works how I’ve been able to chronicle all these issues. My poetry ripple with blood; they are blunt, tearing at the heart of the matter. Read what we’ve been able to produce to date. We’ve never hidden our disdain towards oppression, towards the anarchy that is the Niger Delta oil pollution. And of course the people who are quick to shout us down do not see that we’re even looking inwards. To look at our people and say, see, you’re not doing well like I said before. Our northern governors are right when they said that our Niger Delta governors should account for all the money given to them so far.

    “Yes, they should do that before they ask for more. Even if you give them 100%, they will still steal it. So, our literature has not spared anyone. Read my work entitled The Town Criers Song. Also read other works to enable you feel our pains and see what we see, because we’ve not spared anyone. A few governors are doing well. My brother Amaechi is doing well. Akpabio is trying, but are the rest of them doing well? It is the responsibility of writers to do all that.”

    Ogbowei, a foundation member of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Bayelsa State, admitted however, that poetry is not as easily accepted as other genres of literature. “You know the aversion our people have for poetry. They think it is too difficult. Yet, people are reading, although I might not be getting the kind of response that I expect. However, the fact that my works have got national and international attention gladdens my heart. To have made the NLNG longlist three times, tells me that they’re readers out there who care about the message I pass across. These are quality readers who really understand. Let’s leave the politics of NLNG aside. I don’t want to bother about that, yet we have to keep writing…Literature in the Niger Delta is suffering a lot because we do not have the kind of critics you people in Igboland have. You have more established literary experts, who also started out on time. Your critics are vibrant and strong and are everywhere. Like the Yoruba also have. Not just writers, but critics who defend the interests of the people. This is what we need and our own government should assist in creating an enabling atmosphere for our literature to get to the height it should get. But I don’t think our government is interested in such project. Amaechi is the only governor that I’ve seen who is involved in promoting literature”

    He, however, recommended one of his works, Marsh Boy and other poems to President Goodluck Jonathan. “That book made the NLNG list and President Jonathan should read it because it is a prophetic work. Like most of the things I said in my works as from the late 80s have all happened in Nigeria. That’s the power of poetry – to forsee the future and talk about it. We need to say more too,” he said, smiling.

  • NFF wants ‘more money’ in 2014

    NFF wants ‘more money’ in 2014

    The Nigeria Football Federation will need more money to prosecute some of its key engagements in the coming year, a top member of the body told MTNFootball.com.

    NFF therefore appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to review upwards its 2014 appropriation.

    The federation got 1.2 billion naira this year with a better part of the money expended on the Africa Cup of Nations, which Nigeria won in South Africa.

    The General Secretary of the NFF, Musa Amadu, said the federation will need over three times the appropriation of 2013 for the forthcoming year.

    “You can see what we were able to accomplish with the tight budget we got for 2013,” Amadu told MTNFootball.com

    “And for 2014 where we would be at CHAN, the U-17 women’s World Cup, the Africa Women’s Championship, play qualifiers for the U-20 World Cup and the big one itself, the senior World Cup, you would agree with me that we would need a much improved budget.

    “We would therefore humbly appeal to Mr. President to review our allocation considering the competitions we would be entering, while on our part we will continue to look for new sources of fund to compliment government’s effort.”

     

  • Jonathan receives new U.S ambassador

    Jonathan receives new U.S ambassador

    …  And Namibian High Commissioner

    President Goodluck Jonathan Tuesday in Abuja received the letters of credence of the new United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James F. Entwistle and the new Namibian High Commissioner, Dr. Peingeonjabi Shipo.

    Welcoming the diplomatic representatives to Nigeria, President Jonathan urged them to do their best to further strengthen the existing cordial relations between Nigeria and their respective countries.

    A statement issued by the President’s media aide, Dr. Reuben Abati, said President Jonathan assured the two new ambassadors of the fullest support of the Federal Government for their efforts to broaden areas of bilateral collaboration between Nigeria and their countries during their tenure.

    President Jonathan also received Mr. Collins Chabane, a special envoy of President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

    The President assured Mr. Chabane that Nigeria will continue to welcome investors from South Africa and other African countries in keeping with its commitment to the promotion of intra-African trade and economic relations.

     

     

  • Okon to convene his own conference

    Ever since President Jonathan , in a sudden Damascus-like conversion, decided to convene a National Conference, the entire country has been agog with intellectual and political excitement. The presidency must be enjoying itself. It is like throwing a scrap of meat at the whippersnappers of change and asking them to get on with the feral scrape or get lost.

    Pundits have been moving from one television station to the other. Nobody now seems to remember the Indian origins of that word. Of great concern to an ageing snooper is how some of these chaps always manage to arrive at the station in the early hours without appearing bleary-eyed even as yours sincerely battles with insomnia. It doesn’t add up, or do the stations have five-star suites? This is what George Lukacs, in a famous swipe at Theodore Adorno, calls the Grand Hotel Abyss.

    But while snooper is wallowing in self-pity, you can trust the irrepressible Okon to cotton in on the latest road show in town. The boy has been assembling a truly historic cast of rogues, ragamuffins and other riff-raff on the margins of society for what he called a Conference of Real Ethnic Minorities of Nigeria, CREMON. One morning, the affable crook , drunk with self-importance, walked up to snooper.

    “Oga, we wan start. As dem fly dey chop madman, madman fit chop fly too”, the mad boy crowed.

    “Start what, and where?” snooper snarled.

    “Dem conference of dem real people of Obodo, all dat one wey dem yeye Yoruba lawyers dey blow grammar na wetin Fela call dem army arrangement. We no dey for mala magomago and dem Yoruba monafiki”, Okon calmly submitted.

    “I see. Have you obtained Police Permit?” snooper demanded.

    “Oga, we don get dem Learners’ Permit from dem license office.” Okon snorted with criminal relish. Before snooper could respond to this outrage, an irate Ibo who had been stomping and stamping around with a scowl suddenly exploded. “Nna, make we begin to fire now, now. If not for dis confluence I for don sell ten tires for Ladipo since morning.”

    “Stupid Ibo man. Na so, so money, money, money”, one man spat with contempt.

    “Watch your tongue. I come from Onitsha and I no be Ibo man”, the man screamed. A call to order suddenly rang out amidst the din. It was James Henshaw, the old Calabar aristocrat and hell-raiser ,who claimed to have seen action as a submarine crew during the Second World War. He had arrived on the premises a day earlier with a retinue carrying his fresh supply of crocodile and hippo meat. When he was not reading old newspapers or sniffing from an enormous pouch of snuff, he was eyeing everybody with a supercilious frown which could be quite unnerving.

    “I hereby declare the conference open. The mistake of 1914 is that the Brits didn’t make Calabar the Federal Capital. We will sue them for reparations”, the old bandit declared. A burly Ijaw man with rippling biceps suddenly jumped up.

    “I am not a Nigerian, and I don’t speak English, period”, he announced in English and with a ferocious scowl. The Ijaw stalwart then ordered his aide to translate what he said for the benefit of everybody. As the chap started speaking in some ancient Old Testament tongue, there was pin drop silence.

    “Kai, this is what they call Lingua Fracas”, Baba Lekki rumbled from the depths of slumber. Pole-huggingly drunk as usual, he had fallen asleep on the sofa while claiming to take minutes. It was at this point that an old Godogodo soldier who had been watching the proceeding with barely concealed irritation let go a brisk volley from a concealed revolver which sent everybody scampering for safety.

  • Anambra: President Jonathan’s ‘Ondo Model’ fatal flaw

    Anambra: President Jonathan’s ‘Ondo Model’ fatal flaw

    Did the Anambra shambolic election look, by any means, like a one-man, one-day job?

    Somebody once called him a snake. The more you look at President Jonathan the more you are amazed at his ability to distant himself from activities he inspired; the Anambra fiasco being only the latest of so many. What is playing out, before our very eyes, whether in the Delta Senatorial bye election, the Edo Local Government election or now in Anambra, is nothing but a test run for the 2015 presidential election. It started with the re-election of Governor Segun Mimiko of Ondo State. I have written about this in the past, but let me recap the basic ingredients of the ‘Ondo Model’. It starts with a massive sexing up of the voters’ register into which hundreds of thousands of fictitious names are imported. If in the Ondo case the other candidates didn’t get to know this early, in Anambra it was a complicit INEC Chairman, who ‘promised to clean up the voters’ register, but which he deliberately never did. When then he said a single INEC official sabotaged the election, I merely laughed. Did the Anambra shambolic election look, by any means, like a one-man, one-day job?

    Jega should please show Nigerians some respect.

    The compromised register secured, the next is ensuring that security agencies are primed for rigging the president’s preferred candidate to victory. This, of course, as we also saw in Ondo State, is never the official PDP candidate which I described elsewhere as caricature, but that of either the Labour Party, especially, or of whichever other marginal party is equally programmed to do some dirty electoral job, come 2015. This, then, is their authority for police men thumb printing ballot papers, and providing cover for ballot box snatchers, multiple voting and sundry other illegalities. This has, in fact, worsened since the new Chairman of the Police Service Commission came on board and the Nigeria Police transmogrified into a gun-bearing wing of the PDP.

    This should not surprise us since the Nigeria Police, long before the present Inspector- General, have become more than attuned to slave-like labours. You only have to remember Obasanjo’s use, and misuse, of that outfit which saw one of its leading lights end up in jail.

    But the army?

    I am completely flabbergasted by the reported involvement of men of the Nigerian Army in anti-democratic incidents for three main reasons. The Nigerian Army is a truly distinguished service which lost men and limbs but fought gallantly to keep this country together. Here is an army that continues to demonstrate incredible discipline and expertise in the many international peace-keeping exercises it has participated in since the ’60s, beginning in the Congo. Thirdly, the Nigerian army today parades, amongst its retired top echelon, some of the most patriotic Nigerians and here, I have in mind, the T.Y Danjumas, the Alani Akinrinades, the Y.Y Kures, to name a few. But I have a troubling fear. If current leaders of the service will not be able to resist the anti-democratic uses to which it is currently, egregiously being pushed into, the time will come, much sooner than later, when soldiers from civilised countries will refuse to participate alongside Nigerian soldiers in any peace-keeping exercise.

    While Governor Adam Oshiomhole decried the ignominious police role in a mere LG election, the army was accused both in the Delta Senatorial Bye Election and the Anambra, of being used for illegal electoral duties.

    There is a myriad other ways the ‘Ondo Model’ is consummated; from non delivery of election materials at all or ensuing they come very late, to opposition strongholds. Of course, as APGA Chairman Umeh confirmed, writing election results far away from voting centres has always been the trend in the South-East. This too must have been put to work in the Anambra election.

    All these would have been tolerable if limited to a money-driven state like Anambra, with its thousands of competing billionaires, but from what is fast becoming the norm, PDP is furiously spreading bile, anguish, even insecurity, all over the country. In Ekiti State which, in the past three years of the Fayemi administration, had been widely regarded as one of the safest and most peaceful states in the country, we have seen the results of their crookedness. Having forsaken its 23 aspirants for a consensus candidate from outside the PDP, it has now become the style that aDid the Anambra shambolic election look, by any means, like a one-man, one-day job?nytime Opeyemi Bamidele comes to town, or his Bibire micro group is having any event, there must be a massive breach of peace most probably to confirm that he is such a big fish .

    The fact that PDP routinely abandons its own candidate to line behind another, on a different party, has outrageously played out in the same Anambra conundrum when, like a programmed robot, Olisa Metuh, its Publicity Secretary, peremptorily started praising not only INEC, but the president, for doing a great job at a time his own party’s now abandoned candidate, Tony Nwoye, was boycotting the rescheduled election and joining two other candidates to denounce the shambolic election. I hope the presidency knows by now that it no longer matters a thing whether the APGA candidate is declared winner a thousand times.

    The Anambra fiasco has also demonstrated the awesomeness of God. It has shown that God cannot be deceived by puny man. He has made mincemeat of any ‘erusalem Accord’, just as He did Ahitophel’s counsel.

    Somebody should please inform them of the Yoruba saying that you can deceive a woman to have intimacy only once. We have seen their hands nearer home in Akure and we wait patiently to see what shenanigans they intend to unfold in both Ekiti and Osun, the REAL targets of all these serpentine schemes. Ekiti is a state of eggheads, not money bags, and we wait to see how they intend to manufacture supporters for their consensus, non PDP candidate.

    In the meantime, all the 23 aspirants from the party have been whipped into line and you no longer hear a single one of them breathe a word of his gubernatorial ambition about which they almost shattered our eardrums a few months ago. The enforcer, Chairman Tukur, must have seen to that. Of course, the party is nowhere on ground in the state as recently confirmed by none other than Olatunde, its State Vice-Chairman, when he said candidly, that ‘there was no way the PDP can dislodge Governor Kayode Fayemi in 2014’.

    And it is a certainty that once PDP makes its choice of a candidate in Ekiti public, a deluge of unprecedented proportion will hit the PDP. In the meantime, former governor Segun Oni has pitched tents with the New PDP and it sounds quite logical to suggest that APC will be the party of choice for aggrieved PDP members rather than team up with an imposed, outsider.

    Without a scintilla of doubt, the ‘Ondo Model’ will be DOA -dead on arrival- in both Ekiti and Osun.

  • Jonathan pledges financial support to NIPSS

    Jonathan pledges financial support to NIPSS

    President Goodluck Jonathan, on Saturday pledged to support the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) financially to enable it achieve its research mandate.

    Jonathan stated this during the graduation ceremony of Course 35 of NIPPS in Kuru, near Jos.

    The President, who was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim, said the government would make funds available to the institution to enable it meet its financial obligations.

    “The Federal Government will surely come to the financial assistance of the institute so as to perform its statutory duties to the nation.

    “The Federal Government will make funds available to improve the welfare package of the entire staff of the institution.

    “The government will surely look inward and assist the institution with the funds to discharge its duties as a research institution but within our limited resources,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the President as saying at the ceremony.

    He called on the staff of NIPPS to continue with the good work of producing technocrats for the nation.

     

     

  • Jonathan certified fit, returns Sunday

    Jonathan certified fit, returns Sunday

    President Goodluck  Jonathan has been certified fully fit by the doctors who examined him for the severe abdominal pains in London and will return home on Sunday to continue his official duties.

    A statement issued on Saturday by Dr. Reuben Abati, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, said after a thorough evaluation of the President’s symptoms, medically referred to as acute abdomen, the doctors concluded that no surgical intervention was required.

    “President Jonathan will therefore return to Abuja tomorrow evening and will be at work in the Presidential Villa as usual on Monday,” the statement reads.

    According to the statement, the President is scheduled to depart from London at about 1400 hours GMT and arrive at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at about 20.00 hours.

    He seized this opportunity to thank all Nigerians once again for their sympathy, support and prayers for his quick recovery following the announcement of his indisposition.